


where do you call home?

by hupsoonheng



Series: questions for sam wilson [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Canon Compliant, Internal Conflict, M/M, Meet the Family, New York City, Orgasm Delay, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Porn With Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 11:31:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8284306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hupsoonheng/pseuds/hupsoonheng
Summary: sam gets granted amnesty, and gets to show t'challa around new york. i honestly don't know how this got so long
  "You said this was home." His face is unreadable. Just because you're aware it's part of his skill set doesn't mean you like it when it gets turned on you. 

  "I mean, the place you were born and raised is always gonna be home in some way, no matter what." You frown. "What are you getting at?" 

  T'Challa squeezes your hand. "Do you want to stay here?"





	

**Author's Note:**

> this was a very long time coming, and i really mean it when i don't understand how it got so long, but here it is. i think my sam voice has improved a lot since who takes care of you, and i enjoy this work a lot better in terms of being even more samcentric, but both have their merits, probably

Steve's hug at the airport is almost painfully tight. "I'm gonna miss you," he says, as if you're never coming back. 

"It's just a visit, Steve," you remind him with a little grin as you both pull back. "Amnesty doesn't mean I'm moving back to the States. It just means I get to see my family again." 

Guilt flashes over Steve's face, because you know he still blames himself for your inability to see your family since you met him. As if you didn't make all those choices yourself. But he steels himself, and gives you a fresh smile. "Have fun in New York for me, okay? Tell Brooklyn I said hello." As if there's anyone he knows left in Brooklyn. 

Bucky didn't come to the airport. Bucky's been out of cryo for two months, but he's still considered something of a liability, so he's not allowed to leave palace grounds, and really, most of the doctors barely want him leaving the medical wing. The treatment is starting to gain some traction, you've heard, but it's a process. 

Neither Steve nor Bucky got granted amnesty. Something to do with their criminal behavior outweighing yours, and something else about your unjust imprisonment at Ross's hands. You wonder how many words T'Challa had in that conversation, but you're not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. 

Speaking of T'Challa. He comes up from the kiosk with printed tickets in one hand, and slips his other hand into yours. "I still do not understand why we could not have taken my plane," he says with a snort. "Check my luggage? What if they lose it?" 

"That's the gamble the rest of us always take," you say, looking back at him with a grin. When you suggested you and T'Challa take this trip together, you had to fight to take a regular plane, because after everything, all you want is to have a taste of something normal. Of course, he still insisted on traveling first class. _Not for me,_ he said at the time, looking anywhere but at you, _but for you, because you deserve it._ Trying to imply he wasn't so spoiled he couldn't travel coach. 

It's the same argument you had about accommodations. T'Challa wanted to put up you and him and his whole Dora Milaje posse at the fanciest hotel he could find, names dropping off his lips so large they should have hit the floor with a big fat _clunk_. The Dora Milaje is his business, not to mention too large a group for your family to host. But you knew your mother would flip her lid into another dimension if you didn't stay with her in Harlem. She's still in that same brownstone because only the hand of God Himself could get her out of there; she's been trying to get your sister to move in with the kids, and if nothing else Sarah knows she'll get it in the will, just to keep the property in the Wilson family and out of greedy real estate hands. 

So T'Challa agreed, finally, to do this trip on your terms. A regular flight to a regular airport, so your mother could pick you up in Queens. The Dora Milaje could stay wherever the hell T'Challa wanted to put them, because Lord knows they deserve luxury at all times having to run after his reckless ass. But you and the King of all Wakanda will be staying in your childhood bedroom, just down the street from the top of Morningside Park, bumping the borders of Harlem. _And_ , you stressed, no driving around everywhere. Driving in DC or any other city is one thing. Driving in New York is just a way to spike your blood pressure, and it's no way to experience the city for the first time, either. 

"I have been to New York before," T'Challa sniffed at the time, as if offended that you didn't remember him as the worldly young monarch he is. 

"Oh, what, to the United Nations? And how far out of midtown did you get? Did you even get to that red dude's neighborhood?" you snickered in reply, tapping him on the nose. 

"Red dude?" T'Challa asked as he crossed his eyes, which was as much a treat to see as it was to hear him say the word _dude_. "I did not have time, no. But I have been to New York." 

"That's like saying you've been to a city because you had a layover at its airport," you told him. After a little more back and forth he agreed to your last terms. Your flight, your house, your train, your food. As much as anything New York is still yours, anyway. 

Ironically, T'Challa is a better flyer than you. He charms the hell out of the attendants, even before they find out who they're attending to in the first place. He gets mimosas for both of you, and extra shots because he says you're too fidgety. You just don't like being in the sky if you're not in control, but it's not like you can just kick down the cockpit door and demand the captain's chair on some Captain Phillips shit. 

At the airport your mother is already waiting, a sign that just says SAMMY held up in hands that are so much more withered than the last time you saw her. Her hair is so much whiter, too, a puff of cotton resting on her scalp. Guilt drops into your gut like a handful of sharp ice cubes, but then she spots you and she raises her sign even higher, grinning wide. "Baby!" she crows, bouncing on her feet as you drop your carry-on to run to her. 

You sweep your mother into your arms, with enough vigor that her feet pop right off the floor and she squeaks. "Boy, don't squeeze the life out of me! I don't have much left!" she says, and you laugh as you put her down. T'Challa approaches from behind, carrying both your bags. 

"You got shorter, mama," you say, holding her out at arm's length, hands resting on her shoulders. 

"And you got skinnier," she says, frowning as she puts her hands around your waist. "I don't like all that superhero noise. How are you supposed to eat?" 

"I dunno, granola bars," you say, right as T'Challa reaches your side. Before she can huff that granola bars are not real food, you take a step back as if to better highlight T'Challa. "Mama, this is T'Challa. The King of Wakanda." 

Your mother plants her fists on her hips, looking T'Challa up and down like she's really considering him. Like she's got the option of rejecting a nation's leader on a personal level. "Well, he's cute," she says, a smirk pulling across her face. "I'm Darlene, by the way, as my son would have told you if he remembered I raised him with any damn manners." 

"As if you can't introduce yourself," you grumble, while T'Challa bends to raise your mother's hand to his lips. 

"A pleasure to meet you, Darlene," he says with his dashing smile, and your mother giggles. You stick your tongue out the side of your mouth, but you let this happen because you want her to like him. Not that you expected any different. 

"I like his manners almost as much as I like his face," your mother says as T'Challa gives her hand back. "Maybe I'll just swap him in for you as my new son." 

"Mama! I just got home!" you say, while she starts heading for the baggage claim carousel. 

"And? It's not like I didn't have three other decades of being around you already, Sammy. Don't feel so damn special," she laughs. 

"Good to see I was missed," you sigh, rolling your eyes. At least some things stay the same. 

When you get into the taxi line outside, T'Challa asks what happened to experiencing New York correctly, and you almost smack him with the JFK tags you just peeled off your suitcase's handle, just for the Cheshire grin he gives you when he says it. Your mother catches you mid-swing and gives you the hairy eyeball, reminding you to mind yourself. You suddenly regret not staying at the ultra-fancy hotel instead. 

Loading the cab is a contest in winning your mother's favor, because you know if you don't do it, you'll get chastised for letting your guest do all the work, as if he's a stranger and not your boyfriend. (Still a strange term to think about, much less say out loud.) But T'Challa wants to impress, and not seem like some kind of lazy boy-king, so you both put your bags in the trunk. Then you find that your mother has already installed herself in the back seat, and T'Challa takes the seat next to her, saying he'd like to get to know her better. You wait until you're sitting in the front seat to drag your hands down your face. 

The drive from the airport is as familiar as it is jarring. You roll down the window after you make it across the bridge into Manhattan, and you breathe deep, and it's like your lungs haven't been this full in years. Not that New York air is clean, but you smell food on the breeze from the cuchifritos joint on this street, and you hear the kind of accents and banter you could only hear here, and it's a homecoming that's only interrupted by all the empty storefronts. 

Your childhood bedroom doesn't have a lot left from your childhood. It's the biggest bedroom after the master, and you shared it with Gideon so Sarah could get the third bedroom to herself, tiny as it was. Back then the main feature was a bunkbed with too many stickers running up its wooden legs; now there's some sleek IKEA double parked under the windows, and the blue walls you remember—accented with the dirty shoe prints of both you and your brother getting up to antics—has been painted over with a soothing seafoam green. 

Your mother bustles around the room as T'Challa stands by the window, staring out at the street. He pays instant attention, of course, when she calls for it; she shows you that the dresser is empty, and she knows this is a long-ish visit so she'd like you to use it instead of cluttering the floor up with messy open suitcases. Then she motions T'Challa over to the doorway, and takes him into the rest of the house to give him a tour. 

By the time the tour is over, your mother is trying to offer food and T'Challa wants to accept, but the flight from Wakanda was long, and all you want to do is die. Barring that, you want to crawl into that IKEA bed and fall asleep for the next 24 hours. So you have to plead with your own mother to please, please just let you sleep, you know it's odd hours and the sun is still out but not in Wakanda it's not, so please! And you shoot a silencing glare at T'Challa when he looks like he wants to say something placating, because he doesn't _know_ Darlene Wilson and next thing you know she'll be serving coffee and cookies and arranging to go see the kind of show that involves sitting and watching people on a stage, with an intermission and everything. Nope. You're getting your sleep. 

"Your mother is very friendly," T'Challa says from his seat on the edge of the bed, watching you strip to your boxer briefs for sleep. 

"My mother wants me to be with someone respectable, and that's you," you snort, kicking your jeans into the corner. "She won't say it, of course, but she thinks I did so good, bringing home a king." 

T'Challa catches you by the hips, makes you stand still between his knees as he looks up at you. "You don't bring me anywhere." 

Another snort, this one louder. "Excuse me, your highness. How I must have forgotten my place!" You don't push his hands off, though, just lean in closer and put your hands over his. 

"A cat follows a bird," T'Challa murmurs, and you chuckle as you push at his shoulders. 

"You gonna eat me up, then?" you murmur back, straddling his hips. 

T'Challa opens his mouth to reply with half-lidded eyes, but then there's rapid knocking at the door, followed by the door immediately swinging open. 

"Mama!" you bellow, jumping back while she throws her hands up. "Come on!" 

"Don't you mama me!" she says, though she's clearly flustered. "I just wanted to make sure you boys didn't need any tea to go to sleep!" 

"What's the point of knocking if you just bust right on in?" you say, gesturing wide at the door. It's a question you've been asking since you were twelve. You don't even address the fact that you don't need any damn tea to sleep when a fifteen hour flight does the trick just fine. 

"Don't act like this isn't my house," she retorts, pushing your hand down. "Excuse my hospitality! I'll see myself out, make my _self_ some tea." She stalks out, muttering about ingratitude and boys who think they're grown all the way, as if you're not nearly forty. 

What you actually wanted to do before bed was make your plan of attack for the next day; just because this is a short visit doesn't mean you don't want to make the most of it. But your mother's interruption drains what little energy you had left, and instead you just mumble something about doing it in the morning. T'Challa puts his arm around your waist to pull you tight to his bare chest and chuckles something else about having to wait for your mother to leave for the day. 

You might have woken up in the middle of the night to see T'Challa sitting up on the other side of the bed, but you're so tired you just fall back asleep for a grand total of sixteen hours of sleep. 

"Okay, so first," you say, still wearing your towel around your hips. Your mother knocked loud enough to wake the dead this morning, and this time you managed to make sure the covers did their covering before she barged in with clean towels and an edict to get your clothes in the damn dresser before anything else. Then she headed out, saying she had business to attend to, which knowing your mother meant a bunch of other women with names like Pearl and Mabel and Edith to tell all about her son's new man. Your outfit for the day is sitting in a bunched-up pile on the chair in the corner, and apparently while you were in the shower T'Challa saw fit to make the bed. He's gonna make you look bad, you swear. 

"First?" T'Challa parrots, grinning as he sits forward, elbows on his knees. 

"First I wanna take you to some of the parks, because it's nice out, and I wanna prove to you New York's got it as pretty as Wakanda in some spots," you say, pretending you're ignoring the way T'Challa's taking you by the hands and draws you closer. 

"I don't think you can prove a lie, Sam," T'Challa says, and even now, your heart picks up its feet when he says your name. You should be having a coronary already. 

"Hey, New York can be pretty," you argue, even as T'Challa's ankles cross behind yours. "But listen, after that, I thought we could get food at one of my old favorite joints, I just gotta check on Yelp that it still exists—" 

"And this is all first?" T'Challa's fingertips trace a line just above the top of the towel, making you shiver as your belly contracts. 

"Did I say first?" you reply, running your own fingers up his arms to rest on his shoulders. 

"You are doing it again, you know." T'Challa squeezes his legs around yours and your knees buckle, making you fall right on him. His hands are strong at your back and your towel is loose. 

"Doing what? Being lewd under my own mother's roof? I've been doing that since I was sixteen," you say through a mouth trying not to moan as T'Challa puts kisses to your chest. 

"Putting everyone else first." He wraps his arms around you tighter, until you have no chance of escape from his lips against your skin, and it makes your breath come ragged, makes your towel slip off in the face of your half-erection that's on its way to a full one. 

"I don't—" you gasp, shoving at T'Challa's shoulders until he lets you resettle your knees, straddle his thighs buck-ass naked while he sits in the boxers he wore to sleep. "I don't see how, just from tryna show you around town! It's fun for me too!" 

"You are trying to plan it too much," T'Challa laughs. "Relax. Let me take care of you." 

"It's my damn city," you mumble, as if you haven't been away for years. But T'Challa runs his fingertips along your hairline and you press your cheek into the warmth of his palm. 

"Who takes care of you?" T'Challa says, quiet. Suddenly it seems like the only other sounds are the birds outside. 

You put your hand over his, hold his gaze, and it feels as reverent as it ever does when he asks you that question. It centers you. And if you're honest, although you're not ready to tell T'Challa this yet, it makes you fall a little bit more in love with him every time. 

"You do," you whisper back. 

"That's right," he says, beaming wide and adoring, filling your heart with it, "I do. I take care of you. So let me." 

T'Challa holds you close, strong and tender at once as he kisses his way up your neck. His hands wander when you lean in, one hand brushing across a nipple, the other snaking its way down your back to squeeze at your ass. When T'Challa makes out he likes to go slow about it, like he has to think about each next movement, each next bite and suck, each languid swirl of his tongue. He's savoring you. 

"Get off for a minute," he says against your mouth, breathy and quiet. 

"That's what I'm trying to do," you laugh in return, about as breathy. But you get up anyway, and T'Challa stands to hook his thumbs into the waistband of his underwear. You reach because you want to help but he stops just to grab you by the wrists and shake his head. So you keep your arms wrapped around your waist and watch, while T'Challa pulls his boxers down. His dick bobs up as the elastic pops over it, and this time, you can't keep your hands to yourself. 

You move together, T'Challa sitting back down as you take the length of his dick in your hand, from the tip of your index finger to the heel of your palm, soft and hot and hard. Your thighs find their place again on the outsides of his, and your hand is the only thing between his dick and yours, a thought that makes you shudder, makes your dick twitch and drool against the backs of your knuckles. It's easy to fall back into kissing, the same aching pace as before, as you pump T'Challa through his foreskin. Gently, because it's no replacement for lube, but you want to touch him like this first. 

"Move up the bed," you whisper, and T'Challa grins, even as he obeys. 

"If only people knew you were giving the king orders," he says. 

"If only they knew what kind of a mouth the king had on him, sassing me like that," you retort as you slide off the bed, and start rummaging through your toiletry bag. 

"It is not sass," he says, giving you his best faux snooty face. "I think you need to be reminded what sass is." 

"I'm reminded every day I have to be around you and your ass." You fish out the bottle of lube at last, because like hell were you stashing that anywhere your mother might find it, and toss it onto the mattress. It's supposed to just land next to T'Challa but because the man can't help himself he snatches it out of midair, and then holds it up between his thumb and forefinger. "Alright, show off," you snort, crawling back into bed. 

"For you? Always." You still don't snap open the cap of the bottle, just trace appreciative fingers along the skin of T'Challa's cock. 

"For all the shit I went through, this dick is worth it," you murmur, finally flicking open the orange cap. 

"What about the man attached to it?" T'Challa asks, raising an eyebrow. He shivers a little when you pour the lube straight onto his dick, especially when it immediately spills onto his belly, but you start working it up and down the shaft as soon as you've poured enough, getting it warm. 

"Who?" you say, letting go of T'Challa so you can lube up your own dick. "Oh, this man? This one here?" You close the bottle and drop it next to you, and trace feather-light fingers down T'Challa's stomach, just shy of the tip of his cock. "I heard he's alright." 

"I heard he is a king." T'Challa purses his lips like he's really passing on some prime neighborhood gossip. "I heard he is a powerful warrior." 

"You heard he has an eight pack?" you snicker, and T'Challa frowns. 

"A what? There is no—oh. Oh, I see." He crosses his arms over his chest, which only looks sillier with how ridiculously hard he is. "Another American pop culture reference to go over my head, right?" 

"Dude, it was on the internet, it's not like—" 

"No! No. Now I will start excluding you all the time with Wakandan jokes intended to go over _you_ head, and then who will feel stupid?" He turns his face away, pouting on a cartoon level. 

Your eyes widen, and for just this one moment, sex is the second thing on your mind. "You _have_ to tell me about Wakandan memes. That's not fair." 

"I do not _have_ to do anything but—what is that thing you say? Be black and die! I don't even have to be in this bed." T'Challa uncrosses his arms just to start acting like he's going to roll off the bed. "Goodbye, Sam Wilson, it was nice to know you." 

"Oh, don't even play," you say, and as soon as T'Challa's ass is presented to you, you give it a decent backhand that stops him cold. He looks over his shoulder at you, eyes burning. 

"You know, striking royalty carries a penalty," he says, but he's not bothering to hide his smirk. You know he could trot out a poker face if he felt like it. 

"Penalize me then," you say, emphasis on the _penal_. You slap his ass again with the same hand, with your palm this time, and you spot the way his back arches. 

T'Challa's reflexes are no joke. You're sitting on your side next to T'Challa, but within seconds he's got you bowled over, one hand holding your crossed wrists over your head while the other supports the weight of his body over yours. His hips pin yours and your cocks finally meet, making you both groan, you louder than him. Good thing nobody's home. He grinds against you but there's not enough friction and you wriggle your arms in his grip. 

"You gotta," you gasp as T'Challa thrusts against you, "you gotta hold 'em, together." 

T'Challa leans down, nips at the lobe of your ear to send a jolt to your already overloaded dick, and whispers, "I know that. I have no hurry, though." 

Fuck. 

And he means it, too. For an hour of uninterrupted alone time that was supposed to be spent traversing the great city of New York, T'Challa teases you, almost cruel in how often he brings you close to orgasm before dropping off. (Three. It's three times. You cry a little after that last one, and he kisses your face, reminds you it will be so good.) 

There's no penetration unless you count his occasional two fingers; T'Challa is a show off to his core, likes to show off the skill he has with lips and tongue and hands. In the months since he rescued you from the aviary, T'Challa has fucked you, full on, all of four times, and every time because you asked him with a _please_. It's not a bad thing, honestly, because when he finally lets you come it's a goddamn event, tremors running from your chest all the way through to your fingers and toes, mind wiped of every last thing you intended for the day. 

T'Challa doesn't come by your hand afterward. No, T'Challa looks at the mess he made out of you, and you mumble his name with a smile and hooded eyes through the fog of your orgasm, and that's what sends him over, pumping his own cock as he shoots onto your stomach. 

"Like I didn't shower already," you say, pretending to complain later while T'Challa takes the shower after you. You take the time, while you grumble about the late start you're getting on the day, to re-shuffle the schedule for the day. You argued over Skype with your mother which southern food restaurant to take T'Challa to first, but then you remembered she didn't actually have any say, and went with your choice to take him to Miss Mamie's down at the other end of the park. The internet tells you that one's survived the years. 

You feel fly in your look, from your short sleeve patterned button down to the cropped cuffed pants and the straw fedora your mother says makes you look like a Dominican, but T'Challa gets dressed up in some classic breezy Wakandan styles, easy cotton in that good shade of blue that pops so well against his skin, and you feel kind of plain. Well, he is a king, you remind yourself. 

And because he's a king, he walks like one. Between his stride and his style he draws every eye in Harlem, though you're grateful he doesn't start doing some Princess Diana shit and start waving and smiling. No, he keeps his eyes ahead if he's not looking at you. He holds your hand and it makes you nervous on an instinctual level, but you don't think anyone's actually looking at T'Challa's hands, much less the straw hatted man attached to one of them. 

Miss Mamie's isn't far, only two stops on the train, and it's a beautiful summer day in New York for once, with the breeze blowing warm, so you and T'Challa walk. Your eyes dart around at the start of the journey, checking for paparazzi or assassins or just nosy people with their phones held up, but T'Challa notices and gives you a nudge. He tells you to relax and enjoy the day. 

He likes the catfish and mac and cheese at Miss Mamie's, and the whole staff likes him, too, of course. T'Challa the shining star. He pays the bill while you're in the bathroom, which you should have seen coming, but he left an enormous tip you couldn't have afforded, so you can't be too mad. He likes the view of the baseball field from the corner of the wall of Morningside Park this far south, and he likes the view of the city you show him further up the hill, too. He catches you looking over a list of things to do again, and he pulls you onto one of the benches that face the park at the top of the huge wall. He tells you, again—relax. To reinforce his message he kisses you, just gently enough to be publicly acceptable. 

"Is this all you want to do? Just sit around? You know this city is huge, right?" you say, though you leave your hands intertwined, resting on his thigh. 

"It's not about seeing the city," T'Challa says, looking at some distant point on the horizon. The view really does go on forever, this high above the park. "It is about being with you." 

"You could be with me damn near anywhere," you huff. "I _want_ to show you around." 

T'Challa waves in a vague circle around his head. "Tell me about this place." 

You look around, quirking your brows. "What, here?" 

T'Challa just looks at you with that little smirk of his. You clear your throat. 

"Uh, well. I went to middle school down there." You point down the hill. "At Booker T. I was in one of those gifted and talented programs, you know." 

"No, I don't know. We have very different education styles in Wakanda." T'Challa smiles all the way into his eyes and you don't know if he's making fun of you or not. You give him a light smack on the shoulder, just in case. 

"Used to be..." You frown harder. "A different kind of neighborhood. When we were coming up the hill from Miss Mamie's, uh—well, the damn bodega's gone. And the dollar store." 

"What is a bodega?" 

"Man, you really are from Wakanda," you laugh. "Uh, the corner store, but run by Dominicans, I guess. Or whoever, really, but if you hear fast music in Spanish, it's a bodega. If there's old dudes out front playing dominos, it's _definitely_ a bodega." You laugh at the memory, your twelve year old self walking this specific route back to the train just so you could grab a Zebra Cake and a Sprite after school, never knowing what those old dudes were saying. Your mother said once you might have some Dominican cousins, but man, in New York, who didn't? And it's not like secret Dominican cousins would have given you the power to suddenly be able to translate their rapidfire Spanish. 

"So it's a convenience store." He looks unimpressed. He _sounds_ unimpressed. 

"Well, yeah, but—" You don't know how to express the importance of its absence. The dollar store is a wine bar now, sitting next to the husk of its sister store. In a country as isolated from the greedy claws of capitalism as Wakanda, would that sentence make sense to him, either? 

You sigh. "We should get going." 

T'Challa bites his lip. "Sam—" 

"Nah," you say, and muster up your best mischievous grin. "I wanna see you try and swipe a Metrocard." 

He still looks troubled, but you really commit to the act, pull him up by both hands and further up the hill so you can take him to the train by way of going across Columbia's campus. It works in distracting him, taking in the sights of one of the greatest centers of education in the entire country, and it also means you don't have to look at where the cathedral grounds on the cliffside got dug out for a condo high rise. It's an ugly reminder of how long you've been gone. 

T'Challa's insistence that you take the beginning of the day slow means you only hit one other neighborhood that day, but that's fine, because Chinatown was always destined to take up a lot of time anyway. The trip downtown, too, which is fine because it gives you time to really consider how much fares have gone up since you left home. The trip to Chinatown is a little embarrassing, on some level—T'Challa keeps pointing out how much garbage is in the gutters, or responding directly (with a polite _No, thank you_ ) to the people muttering that they have bags and movies until you tug on his elbow violently. 

Chinatown, too, is full of holes. Back in the 90s, you and your smattering of anime nerd friends used to storm the arcade with the money left over from spending your food money on bootleg tapes and Gundam figures in the basement of the Elizabeth Center. Now the tiny mall is a ghost town of plate glass and dusty grey carpeting, only a handful of stores left. The Japanese snack store you used to hit up after that is gone, too, but at least the arcade is bustling, and you take so much video of T'Challa playing video games it maxes out the storage on your phone, with your laughter as the soundtrack for each video. And look, your favorite underground spot with the shrimp paste on sugar cane is still around. It's not all bad. 

Darlene is huffy, when you get back, that you got dinner outside; you noticed too late that she'd been texting you, trying to ask what she should cook. Of course she wants to flex her cooking skills for a king. So she makes tea for all three of you, but she ignores you, batting her lashes at T'Challa like she's not far too old for him. 

You turn off the last light in the bedroom that night, and that's when T'Challa speaks up. "Sam," he says, as you settle back against the warmth of his bare chest. 

"T'Challa," you reply, trying not to be smug in your first name privilege. Not when there's no one around to get hit with it, anyway. 

"I'm sorry," he says, the breath of his words rolling across the back of your neck. 

"For what?" T'Challa's hand rests against your stomach, and you put your hand over it, running your thumb over the joint of his. 

"I did not understand what you were trying to say, earlier today." 

"Don't worry about it," you say. You sighed then, and you sigh now. "It's not that big of a deal." 

"It is a big deal," he insists, though he's smart enough to keep his voice low. "It was important to you, and I was being..." 

"A little prince?" you say, turning your head just enough to catch a glimpse of T'Challa in the corner of your eye. You try to say it with affection, but it must be the twist of your neck or something because it comes out accusatory instead. 

He doesn't reply, at least not with words, so you shift onto your back so you can look at him properly. He's biting his lip, eyes cast down the way he always does when he's thinking too damn hard. You put your hand to his cheek, run your thumb there instead. "Do I have to tell _you_ to relax now?" you say, chuckling just a little. 

"Maybe," he says, returning your laugh. "Sometimes I forget..." He traces the line of your cheekbone, down along your jaw, your neck. "How different we are. How different _I_ am." 

You swallow. "Too different?" 

"There is no difference too great," he says, letting his hand pause over your heart. In the dark of the bedroom, filled with a New York silence, it's poetic. It makes you hurt. 

But the moment doesn't last, T'Challa's face split by a grin that you can see all the better by the moonlight glinting off his teeth, and you grab his pillow just to belt it against the side of his head. "You corny ass—!" you guffaw, as T'Challa makes a big melodramatic deal about an attempt on his kingly life. 

Then your mother bangs on the door, and you both freeze. "Any broken bones in there?" she asks through the wood. 

Before you can stop him from answering the question your mother has been using since before you can remember, T'Challa says, "No, madam, we are both perfectly fine." 

"Then I don't know why y'all are making so much damn noise when a poor old lady is trying to sleep next door!" she snaps, and you laugh as silently as you can into your hand while T'Challa sinks back down into the mattress, looking both confused and mollified. 

T'Challa's campaign for you to take things slow and relax continues past that first day. Darlene goes out for the day, and if your planning efforts don't turn into sex, there's still a certain degree of lying around that happens, like when T'Challa tells you to stop scribbling and Googling and Yelping and show him one of your favorite shows. (That's a day when you get nothing done.) 

You don't really take him to any landmarks, short of a couple statues here and there. The thing about New York that gets forgotten is that it's a place where people live, so what you show him isn't the best this or the most amazing that, but what's familiar to you, from your old life here. You show him Union Square just to show him, point out what everything used to be that you can still remember. You take him back uptown to a Chino-Caribbean joint that's managed to survive the years, and you can tell T'Challa's not blown away but he likes it because you like it. You take him to Chelsea Market because you remember it being kind of a cute and relaxing indoor space, but you burst right back out again because there are so many tourists stopping dead short in front of you that you might have an aneurysm. There's a difference between a place packed full of New Yorkers and a place packed with tourists, and it's an overwhelming one. 

When you take him into Brooklyn you take the train over the Manhattan Bridge, and the new thing that you've been hearing about on the internet, but have yet to witness, are the Showtime Kids. They board the train at Canal, and as soon as the doors are closed they announce that _it's showtime!_ Lucky for them it's the middle of the day, and the train is mostly clear. 

Unlucky for you, this is another one of those times where T'Challa doesn't have the social cues ingrained in New Yorkers, and instead has his stupid love for any challenge that comes his way. From his seat beside you, he watches the first two kids do their thing, spinning the pole, doing backflips, catching their hats back on their heads when they land. That's fine. You're watching too, albeit less obviously than he is. 

Then T'Challa lands the perfect assassination by humiliation. He gets up, and the kids are already trying to gesture him back to his seat or to a corner by the door, _sir, please,_ aggressive in their apparent concern for his safety so this tourist will get the fuck out their way. T'Challa gives them a big smile like he doesn't understand them, and grabs the pole in the center. _Sir,_ they keep saying, waving flat palms anywhere he'll fit that's not in the way. 

He goes for broke. He _must_ want you to melt right through the damn floor, right through the tracks and into the water. He starts imitating their moves, using all that extensive and deadly training to flip his body around a subway pole and stick the fucking landing. The kids howl with good-natured laughter, and T'Challa tries to catch your eye like he thinks he's being cute, like you _shouldn't_ abandon his ass at the next stop. But people are clapping anyway, and T'Challa looks like he's having fun, and he also gives them all the cash in his pockets for whatever royal reason, so you try not to begrudge him the embarrassment _too_ much, especially when you can't even make him understand why it's embarrassing. 

The kids get off at DeKalb and T'Challa retakes his seat next to you, which only survived because you sent your mother a telepathic apology and spread your thighs across both seats. "I can't believe you," you laugh into your hands, held over your face. 

"Why? It looked like fun, and it was," T'Challa says, and you can hear the diabolical grin in his voice. He peels your hands off your face. 

"You just don't do that kind of shit here!" You're still laughing, though, enough that you let him take both your hands and just hold them. They're softer than you'd expect from a warrior like him. 

"No? Then New York is not very much fun. We have fun in Wakanda." 

"We have fun in New York," you mutter. "You'll see." 

You take him first to the Brooklyn Museum, and after the cashier tries not to roll her eyes over you and T'Challa physically shoving at each other to put a credit card down first to pay full price—he wins, royal Wakandan training trumping the US military again—T'Challa teases you that he's not seeing the fun yet. But he takes in exhibitions with full consideration, holding your hand loosely when you stand beside him and clasping his hands behind his waist when you don't. You look up past exhibitions on your phone and there are ones you wish T'Challa could see instead, but you don't tell him until after you leave the museum. 

You'd considered the botanical gardens between the museum and your night plans, but you also didn't expect T'Challa to care so damn much about art, so you skip straight back to Fort Greene to try a place Sarah suggested, for a change. Inside the place is airy and bright, but most of it is outdoors with a painted chainlink fence around it, and that's where you and T'Challa sit. It's a Sunday night, and there's a movie being projected onto the flat white side of the building next door. The frozen margaritas are both refreshing and strong, welcome against the hot night breeze. T'Challa keeps ordering more drinks, so this time you don't fight him when he says he wants to pay. 

"I don't think I've ever seen you drunk," you say, and T'Challa snorts into his drink so hard you get hit with ice flecks. 

"I drink around you," he says, his grin lopsided, his shoulders swaying. "I have done that before. Yes. I have." 

"You've had _a_ drink around me," you counter, pointing at him with the bottom of your cup before you take your own swig. "You feeling good or something?" 

"How could I not feel good?" T'Challa leans back in a sharp move, his back thumping his chair, and he laughs. "I am with you, it's hot out, everyone is finally having fun, and whoever is making these drinks," and he gives his cup a shake, "is a wizard." 

"Relax," you chuckle. "It's a frozen margarita, not ambrosia from on high." It's not like you're not inebriated, but boy, T'Challa kept putting 'em away, and you're lagging behind. You both got tacos, too, but they don't do much in the face of that much alcohol. "You gonna look real stupid on the train, you know that?" 

"You would not let me look stupid. You like me too much." He closes his eyes as he smiles and sways a little more, and your heart flutters at the sight. You hate how easy he makes it, sometimes. How damn _cute_ he can be for a dude you've seen be as scary as he can get. "Can we not break your stupid cab rule for this?" 

"I should say no," you say, "but I bet you'd find a way to embarrass me if I let you on public transportation." 

"Oh, that is a guarantee, Sam. I will embarrass you until you die." Then he starts laughing at his own choice of words, or maybe something else, hard enough that he starts to slip down in his seat. You take this time to pluck his frozen margarita from his side of the table, effectively confiscating it when you stick its straw in your mouth at the same time as yours. Might as well play catch-up while you cut him off. 

The thing about T'Challa, which he's mentioned in snatches at most, is that he's some kind of augmented, too. It's like you'll never find company amongst regular humans ever again. So while he certainly drank a whole lot more than you, in the dark of the backseat of a cab he sobers up as quickly as he got drunk. It's as interesting to watch as it is kind of disappointing, especially when you get all the way back up to Harlem and he's totally got his shit together while he has to support your stumbling ass getting out of the cab. You shouldn't have helped him finish that last margarita. 

Your mother chastises you for smelling like booze, _What am I, a hotel receptionist? Is this Chez Darlene?_ But T'Challa distracts her with his charm just long enough to send you up the stairs, and when he joins you in the bedroom he helps you out of your clothes, watches while you drink the entire glass of water he brought you, and lays your alcohol-heavy body out on the bed. The mattress sinks next to you after several minutes, and that's T'Challa stripped for sleep too, warm smooth skin against yours that feels so flushed. You want to kiss him but he just gives you a peck on the cheek, says you'll like kissing better when you're not drunk. You say you always like kissing and he just laughs. 

"You seem almost like a different man, here," he whispers as he ghosts his fingers across the top of your chest. 

"'M just home, 'sall," you mumble, without giving it much thought. Between the alcohol and T'Challa's petting, you're falling asleep. Somewhere in your head you don't miss the way his fingers stutter when the word _home_ falls out of your face, but right now you're too drunk to consider much more about that. 

"I'm not young anymore," you groan in the morning, and wince when T'Challa laughs at you. You wonder if he's ever gotten a hangover, or if he's even capable. Your mother is already out for the day by the time you finally drag yourself out of bed, and T'Challa informs you that he had such an interesting talk with her about the "vultures" who keep trying to get her to sell the brownstone, and her memories of the neighborhood. She, of course, also told him some of her favorite embarrassing stories of your childhood, and when he tells you about that there's a wicked glint in his eye you don't like. That one's gonna come back to get you, definitely. 

T'Challa cooks you eggs and grits while you drape yourself over the table and grumble about the way your head feels. "I know my mama still keeps that Jimmy Dean in the freezer even if she talks a big game about eating healthy these days," you call out while the eggs sizzle. "My brother comes over too much for her to not be keeping that shit." 

"Jimmy who?" T'Challa says, ducking his head out of the kitchen. But he finds the sausage patties, and adds them to the stove. He pours orange juice for both of you, puts two ibuprofen tablets next to your glass—where did he find the bottle?—and sits next to you around the circular table so he can periodically massage your neck. It's not anything that specifically helps, but it feels nice so you're not gonna tell him to stop. 

It's almost noon by the time you feel better—a soldier's hard pressed to sleep in, even after drinking—but it doesn't mean you don't still feel lazy. You whisper in T'Challa's ear about taking things slow while he's tapping at your mother's dishwasher like a paranoid cat (he can't figure it out), and he leaves the dishes to follow you upstairs. 

He's been so insistent in his mantra of taking care of you, from hangover aftercare to sex, that this time you take the lead. This time, T'Challa is naked first. You kiss his foreskin, put your closed lips all over the shaft of his dick, consider your next actions while you trace nonsense shapes on the silky insides of his thighs. "Should I suck your cock?" you ask, making sure he can feel your breath on the underside of that very same cock. 

"If you want," T'Challa says, and he's so, so good at sounding nonchalant but he's betrayed by the tremble in his legs at your suggestion. You put your mouth to his inner thigh and inhale the scent of showered skin and arousal. 

"I don't know what I want," you say, crossing your ankles and bending your knees while you walk two fingers over the cord of muscle that connects his thigh to his groin. "Maybe I wanna suck your cock. Maybe I wanna open this ass up and fuck you until you give up those Wakandan memes you were talking about." That second one's probably a lie, you like so much more to be fucked than to do it yourself, but you like how his thighs squeeze around your shoulders, and the way his eyes flick down before he meets yours, lashes long and lids heavy. 

"Or maybe," you say, letting your fingers find their way back down again, just under T'Challa's balls, "I'm feeling real lazy, and all I wanna do is finger my man and watch him light up from that." 

From the way the sheets bunch up next to you, it seems like T'Challa's toes are curling at that one, and you can't help yourself, looking down the side of your body to check. Yeah, he likes that one a lot. 

He likes it better when your finger is in him, dripping with lube onto the towel you were smart enough to put down. You kiss, slow and hot, as he rocks himself onto that finger. Sometimes you still think about how wild it is that you get to see this side of a world leader, especially one like him; you think about it now, but not too much, not when he moans so helplessly into your kisses at the sensation of a second finger being added. You rub your thumb, gentle but insistent, against that thin skin behind his balls and it makes him shudder. 

"Is this how you wanna come, your highness?" you ask, smirking against T'Challa's neck. He could, too, close enough to orgasm that you can feel it singing through his skin, see it in the tightness of his balls. 

"Sam," he groans, his laugh so breathy it almost doesn't sound like one. 

"Let me rephrase, then," you say, and you kiss him again, find his prostate again and stroke it to make him cry out. "Is this how you want to come, T'Challa? On my fingers?" 

"Maybe," he says, eyes foggy even as they focus on you. You give him another stroke and his eyes flutter shut as a moan pushes past his teeth. 

"On my fingers?" you press again. "Or on my cock, T'Challa?" 

T'Challa isn't one for dirty talk. But he lets you know just as well when he sits up just enough to wrap a hand around your dick, tug it toward where your fingers currently reside. You almost blow a fuse when he sits up a little more, finds your ear with his mouth and whispers into it. _Fuck me, Sam._

When you push inside T'Challa, slick and too ready, he's hot and tight and you don't want this to end. You want to fuck him in every position you can think of, you want to kiss him as much as you can the whole way, and you don't even _like_ topping all that much. But T'Challa is so damn pretty under you. 

You don't get all those positions you thought of; you can't last that long, not when it's T'Challa. But you fuck him missionary, wrapped around each other tight with his ankles locked at your back and your thighs next to his hips, arms entangled, barely breaking your kiss. You fuck him with both of you on your sides, one arm supporting your weight while the other reaches over his waist to curl around his dick. T'Challa twists his body around, caresses your face with one hand while you kiss. You forgot there was a mirror on that wall, and you don't get a full view of yourselves but it's enough to see that sliver of your bodies, to see where you pump in and out of him, to see his belly undulating with fast breath and the way his hips are rolling. You come, vision white and hips shaking, just a few minutes after T'Challa does. 

Two showers later, you catch T'Challa putting on another one of his fancy-for-New-York Wakandan outfits, and you shake your head. "You're gonna get that dirty today," you say, and hold out something more casual from your collection. "We're going to the park for more lazy times." 

"Sex in the park seems bold, but I am not unopposed," T'Challa says with a grin, and instead of passing him the clothes you throw them at his face. 

T'Challa in a T-shirt and jeans is surreal, but he still manages to make it look good. You pack some blankets in a tote bag while you set T'Challa on picnic food duty. Again you walk to 110th, and T'Challa asks you on the way down what's wrong with Morningside, or Marcus Garvey, that you're passing them right by. 

"Nothing wrong with them, I just have my spots," you say. "Remember me with my one garden I like to go to on the palace grounds? It's like that." 

With that explanation, at least, T'Challa doesn't question why you walk so far into the park, passing by what look like plenty of prime blanket-worthy spots. But you want the Lawn, that perfect crux between being alone and being surrounded, and you think it's something T'Challa should see, too. 

The perfect spot is out by the edge, half in shade, near a family with a whole lot of toddlers. Truth be told, you're not even hungry yet, so when the blanket is set and your shoes are off, you just lay yourself right down on your stomach with your head on your crossed arms, watch as T'Challa laughs and joins you. 

You close your eyes, and it's the most peace you've known in a long time. You feel the sun on your legs, the air warm on your back. You hear children, birds, the wind. The sound of T'Challa breathing next to you, the touch of his arm pressed against the underside of yours on the narrow blanket. It feels like it could be anywhere. 

"Sam," T'Challa says, and for him, you open your eyes. 

"Mmm." You shift to free the arm closer to him, twine your hand with his. 

"You like being here, don't you?" 

You try to shrug with one shoulder. "It's where I'm from. I like showing you around." 

"You said this was home." His face is unreadable. Just because you're aware it's part of his skill set doesn't mean you like it when it gets turned on you. 

"I mean, the place you were born and raised is always gonna be home in some way, no matter what." You frown. "What are you getting at?" 

T'Challa squeezes your hand. "Do you want to stay here?" 

You laugh. "I don't know if all the higher-ups dealing with the amnesty stuff would like that." 

"Answer me." You wish you could fathom what you see in his eyes. You think it's some kind of sadness but there's something else in front of it. 

"I can't just answer something like that instantly!" You pull your hand away from his so you can shift back onto your belly and prop yourself up on your elbows. "I mean, does it matter? I assume we're going back to Wakanda. Together." You fix him with a look. "Or am I wrong?" 

T'Challa sighs, and heaves himself up so he can sit cross-legged. "Of course you're welcome back to Wakanda." 

"So this isn't some kind of weird attempt to ditch me, but like in a way where I think it was my idea." It's not like he could stay in New York with you, after all. You fiddle with the grass that ended up between your hands at the edge of the blanket, not tearing it up but not exactly being gentle, either. 

"Of course not!" He takes your hand again, holding it hard enough to let you know he doesn't want to let go. "I just—I only want for you to be happy, Sam. It was so hard to see you the way that you were, when you first came to the palace." 

"I got happy," you say, voice soft, "when I was with you." 

And that makes him smile, breaking his frown. "Seeing you here is like seeing a flower in bloom," he says. "I do not want to take you away from here if it would cut your stem." 

"You and your damn poetry," you say, laughing even as you sigh. "Look, don't worry about it, alright? We've got the plane tickets anyway, my ass is going back to Wakanda. Lie back down. I wanna take a nap." 

T'Challa looks like he's not done with this topic, but he just shakes his head. "We were not lazy enough this morning?" 

"Lazy's not a limited resource," you retort, already in the process of putting your head back down. 

You don't fall asleep as instantly as you want to, though. Your brain is burning with T'Challa's words—and not just that. 

There's so much here that feels familiar, and it's not just your family. Every bite of food, from Miss Mamie's to the Vietnamese spots downtown to the Halal carts on the street, those are memories bursting at the back of your tongue. Every quick step taken to keep up with the press of commuters feels like a normal you left behind. Every pair of fresh sneakers that earns your look and your nod, your younger self is nodding too, finding easy silent community. 

But for every memory, there's a slap waiting for you, to remind you of the change that ravages cities like these. Darlene Wilson is one of the last holdouts of her block, and you hardly recognize her cold-shouldered new neighbors, who seem to use their young children to ignore any attempts at greetings. There are buildings that have been torn down, buildings that even exploded, in almost every place that ever held meaning for you, replaced with the ugly and the corporate. You sit on the train next to T'Challa and you feel like you know where you're going but nothing much deeper than that. 

New York was your cradle. But New York isn't your home. 

You don't tell T'Challa that, of course. The subject was dropped, and as far as he knows, you said you were going to Wakanda and that was that. Hours later you've actually gotten some napping in, which gets you ravenously hungry for the food T'Challa packed, except he's never packed for a classic American picnic so what he's packed is weird shit, like just straight up vegetables "because they're good for you!" and some yogurts he thought you were gonna eat sooner, so now they're pretty suspect. 

Darlene invites Gideon and Sarah over, and Gideon's children are too old to care about meeting their uncle's boyfriend (someone must have left out his identity in explaining that part) but Sarah's brought her kids, and Jody is especially fascinated with T'Challa. He's the one who asks if you're going to be royalty now, dating T'Challa the way you are, and it sets your adult relatives into a frenzy of politicking and explanation. You like seeing them at the table together, but you don't even realize how distracted you still are until you accidentally drop a big glop of mashed potatoes a whole three inches to the side of your niece's plate. 

"Sam," T'Challa says the next morning, as you towel dry. 

"I always love when you use my first name, you know that?" you say, turning to look at him with a wry smile. 

"And you say 'you know that' a lot, do you know that?" He taps your nose as he approaches you. "You were, ah. Clumsy, last night." 

"A man's always gotta have fine motor control? I can't take a break from being perfectly graceful every once in a while?" you say with a chuckle, but T'Challa sits you down on the bed where your towel can't fall off, and that chuckle dies a quick death. 

"I know you said we have the tickets to Wakanda, and this is true," he says, as he takes his seat next to you, holding your hands. "But that does not answer whether you want to live here, in New York, or not." 

This time you have both shoulders for shrugging. "New York's not my home." 

T'Challa frowns, opens his mouth just to take a hesitant breath. "DC, then?" 

That earns him a good laugh. "Hell no." 

"You... You have amnesty now, and with my help, you could live anywhere you wanted—" 

"T'Challa." You take a hand back just so you can tip his chin up, make him look you in the eye. "Stop trying to get rid of me." 

"I would not!" He laughs nervously, which is such a rare occurrence you ought to be recording it. 

"Look," you say, taking his hand again, "I missed New York in a lot of ways. Anyone would miss where they came up, even a little bit. That doesn't mean I _have_ to live here." 

T'Challa doesn't say anything, just looks at you with this strange mix of fear and hope. 

"Home is wherever I want to make it. Well, more or less," you add, because you just don't have T'Challa's poetic capacity. "And right now I just want to stick with you." You give his hands a single shake. "In Wakanda." 

The smile that spreads across his face is slow to appear, but when it does it's brilliant, and he kisses your face, over and over. 

"Anyway, listen," you say, laughing as he gets his last few face-kisses in, "I've still got plans for us for today! We've got like three days left in New York and they've gotta count." 

In truth, you're not sure of anything you've told T'Challa. You've spent so many years feeling adrift, especially once you started following Steve into battle, that you can't even define what _home_ means for you anymore. But as you sit beside T'Challa on the interminable flight from hell, hands loosely curled around each other, you think you might have the start of an idea. 

After all, a person can be a home as much as any city.

**Author's Note:**

> and with this fic ends my last night at the bws for this quarter. i'm broke and stressed so i've suspended my membership at the writers space for the fall/winter quarter, so expect my productivity to dip, but hopefully not die. keep your fingers crossed for me bc i don't want to go on hiatus! 
> 
> bother me on tumblr [here](http://softsams.tumblr.com/)


End file.
